<strong>UP Budget: </strong>Focus on infrastructure, welfare, women and youth in Yogi's 'Naya Uttar Pradesh'. Highlights

UP Budget: Uttar Pradesh finance minister Suresh Khanna on Wednesday tabled the state’s annual budget for the financial year 2023-24 and the second budget for ‘Yogi 2.0’. Khanna announced that the state GDP had registered a 16.8% growth while the employment rate went down to 4.2%. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath presided over a meeting of the state cabinet to give a nod to the budget.

The annual budget has an approximate size of ₹7 lakh crore. As was expected, it focused on infrastructure development, welfare schemes and empowerment of youths and women in the state.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has called it a budget for 'Naya Uttar Pradesh'. He said saying it will add new golden chapters in the history of socio-economic and cultural development of the state.

Wooing different sections for 2024 elections

The 2023 UP budget assumes significance as it comes just a year ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in April-May 2024. And through this budget the Yogi government aims to woo different sections of society including, youths, women, farmers and deprived classes etc.

Last year on May 26, the state government had presented an annual budget of ₹6.15 lakh crore. A supplementary budget of ₹33,769.55 crore was presented on December 5, 2022, taking the total size of the UP budget in 2022-2023 to ₹6.50 lakh crore. An increase of about 10% in the outlay may take the annual budget for 2023-2024 to nearly ₹7 lakh crore.

Some of the key takeaways

Students: ₹3,600 crore allotted for the provision of tablets and smartphones to eligible students of the Swami Vivekananda Youth Empowerment Scheme

Women: ₹1,050 crore under Chief Minister Kanya Sumangala Yojana, which offers financial assistance to the guardians of two girl children in one family

₹4,032 crore for destitute widows

₹600 crore for Samuhik Vivah scheme for the marriage of all girls of all classes

₹150 crore under the marriage grant scheme for daughters of poor people belonging to other backward classes

Infrastructure: An outlay of ₹21,159 crore for construction of roads, bridges; ₹6,209 crore for maintenance

Bridges and roads for agricultural marketing facilities

Khanna said ₹3,473 crore is proposed for the work of bridges and roads for agricultural marketing facilities and ₹1,525 crore for roads in rural areas. While ₹1,700 crore is proposed for the construction of railway overhead bridges and ₹1,850 crore for other bridges, the budget proposed ₹2,588 crore for widening/strengthening and new works of state highways.

The budget proposed ₹1,000 crore for the development of 'Dharmarth Marg' (roads to religious places).

The budget also proposed ₹3,000 crore for maintenance of roads and ₹2,500 crore for construction from the State Road Fund.

A provision of ₹100 crore for the implementation of the metro rail project in Varanasi, Gorakhpur and other cities

An outlay of ₹200 crore for Gorakhpur Industrial Corridor

₹1,306 crore for the Delhi-Ghaziabad Meerut Corridor Regional Rapid Transit System project

₹200 crore for the Unity Mall to sell One District One Product (ODOP) products

Health, Jobs, Research: A budget provision of ₹7,248 crore proposed for old age/farmer pension scheme; ₹1,120 cr for Divyang Pension Yojana

₹12,631 crore outlay for various programmes under National Rural Health Mission, ₹400 crore for implementing Ayushman Bharat scheme

₹20 crore for State Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development

₹401 crore has been set aside for the implementation of Uttar Pradesh Electronics Manufacturing Policy, ₹85 crore 89 lakh for state Data Center and ₹60 crores for Information Technology and Startups Policy

₹20 crore has been earmarked for the Agriculture Accelerator Fund to encourage agritech startups in rural areas

Creation of 20 thousand jobs in next 5 years under UP Tourism Policy 2022 with an investment target of ₹10 lakh crore

Other highlights of the budget

: ₹1,000 crore for development of residential facilities for cops

₹10 crore allocated for purchase of vehicles by State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF)

₹850 crore set aside for new police commissionerates

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